Acutally, it's not.

> Absolutely!

> But you are aware, aren't you, that your images will be picked up on a
> Google image search? The search engine isn't picky and doesn't read
> statements (though it does read a "robots nofollow" command.

Internet law is still in it's infacy. Rest assured that there will be class
action lawsuits brought against google in the future for copyright violation. I'm not sure the laws now exist one way or the other, there yet to be written.

> So all that it's doing is putting up a "frame" and showing you

The frame is the part thats offensive. The original author uploaded the images
to "their" site, usually to go along with some text, advertising, etc... They don't just upload them for freebies, at least not generally. By "framing" the image, you deny the original author the benefit of putting it up in the first place. The viewer is "locked" into the framed site. Not really, but most viewers don't have the expertise to break out of the frame.

> Agreed. And this is a case where photographers and artists need to be
> informed. If you put your images on the web, search engines WILL find
> them. Unless you do something at your website to protect the content (such
> as making them non-downloadable and so forth), then they are open to
> linking and printing and modifying by just about anyone. Watermarks are
> some protection, and so are low-rez thumbnails.

That sad, but true, we go back to the saying... locks only keep the honest people out.

> The best protection (IMHO) is to not put them on the web at all.
> Unfortunately, many who wish to do business over the Internet can't do
> this, so the other options are overprinting the image, putting a
> "nofollow" option so they won't get indexed, or putting other
> types of electronic barriers up to prevent them being seen by any of the
> search engines.

I deal with this on a daily basis. My customers frequently violate my copyright. Confronting them leads to bad feelings and is not good for business. Many photographers like myself, take these opportunities to try and educate in a general sense. The problem is today's generation has no respect
for copyright, be it movies, music, photography, artwork, etc... We have the
technology to steal and everybody does it, so it must be OK.